Italians takes 4th place in Caen
11 Apr 2011 | Roman Spernak
The Italian team played four games in the Women's World Championships in Caen. Three times Italian players almost reached points and three times they left defeated. Always for a bit. At the beginning they lost 0-1 to France, then lost 1-3 to Denmark and last time they lost with the same result to the Czech Republic. In the last day the coach Marco Liberatore led his team against Team Great Britain to a successfull fight for the pre-last place.
What do you expect from this championship?
Whenever a person goes to a championship, it is ready to win. But with the same goal are going all the teams. Only when a person arrives on site and meet all his opponents, he will know his limits.
You have lost the first free games in the tournament. What was the problem?
We played well. We lacked a little luck, a bit of experience and a player, that can score more. We played three really good games, but we lack the personality that can make decisions.
Are you very disappointed?
It's hard, because when we play bad and lose, you just need to improve. But when we play well and just do not have any points, we feel bad. Team France is strong, Team Denmark is at the same level as us and the Czech Republic is of course much stronger than us.
How was the game against Czechs?
For me, the Czech Republic is the strongest team in the championship. For the technically and attacking point of view absolutely the best. That's why I'm a little angry and disappointed, because we, despite a good defensive game, lost. If we had a bit more luck we could score more goals and in addition we could do a surprising result.
Against Team France it was a bigger pity. You lost only for one goal.
Lots of people told me that we played really well and we deserved something extra. Unfortunately, we had nothing. Nice to listen to it, they also said that we have the best team clothes, but that is absolutely useless. I refer to play badly and had results, but that's sport. In my opinion, Czech Team will win. You hope to in, but I think it's obvious. Team France is also a strong team, but too young.
How does women's hockey in Italy?
Our biggest problem, compared to other European countries, is that they play hockey on the whole country, but we play only in three regions. It is too little. It is then the question of choice. Women's hockey is doing even worse. We have only four teams. Sixty to seventy players who play regularly and from them we have to make a national team. The top five are great players from fifteen to twenty, we can take whom we want and do not care.
In Italian men's hockey leagues play a lot of naturalized foreigners. In women´s hockey this doesn´t work?
I would be really happy if this could be possible, because when better players come, they help others to grow to their level. I wish that Italian players with a foreign passport can play. Thus, there is more competition, all is getting it to a higher level. Italian Association disagrees. Maybe some players would not play. Everybody wants a victory, but they are not able to sacrifice something for it. If we do not have competition and competitiveness, we can never improve and get to the next level.